B1ReadingPartie 4
Gapped text
Five sentences have been removed from the text below. For each question (1-5), choose the correct answer (A-H). There are three extra sentences which you do not need to use.
From the Dinner Table to the Olympics
An article about the history of table tennis, from a Victorian after-dinner game to an Olympic sport.
Table tennis is now played by millions of people around the world, but it began as a simple game in the dining rooms of England in the 1880s. After dinner, some wealthy families would push their plates aside and play across the table. For a ball, some players used the rounded top of a cork.Around 1900, players started using small hollow balls made of celluloid, an early kind of plastic. Because of the sound the ball made when it hit the table, people began to call the game 'ping-pong'. Soon, sets were on sale in shops, and the game became very fashionable in Britain and America.However, the fashion did not last. It was not until the 1920s that national associations were formed, and the first world championships were held in London in 1926.In the 1950s, Japanese players arrived at international competitions with bats covered in a thick layer of sponge. Before long, almost every top player had changed to this type of bat. Even today, top players' bats have a layer of sponge under the rubber.In 1988, table tennis became an Olympic sport for the first time. Twelve years later, the official ball was made slightly bigger. Today the game is played everywhere, from parks and schools to large arenas, and most players have no idea that it all started with a pile of books and a cork.
Sentences A–H
Click a sentence, then click a gap number
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